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June 20, 2007
Retrohump Day: Fire Engines
Since last week's Orange Juice clip was so lovely, I decided to stay in kilt-ville. Another member of the thriving early eighties scene that spawned the Juice, Josef K and too many others to count, were the wild Fire Engines. Though the band put out a frustrating live tracks and rarities disc called Codex Teenage Premonition not too long ago, there hasn't been a complete document of their studio output since 1992's Fond compilation went out of print. Those of us still waiting for the proper re-issue of their 1981 debut, Lubricate Your Living Room (Background Music for Action People!), are not advised to hold our breaths.
The You Tube selections for such an obscure group are about as spotty as one might expect, but there are gold flecks among the pebbles. Also, myriad videos of fire trucks racing down the street. We'll leave you to find the best of those...
Fire Engines - "Candyskin"
(fan made video)
Fire Engines were more volatile than their slightly more famous countrymen. While there were danceable beats grounding most songs, the skronking No Wave guitars place them closer to James Chance and the Contortions (James White and the Blacks if you're nasty). "Candyskin" is the exception. With up front vocals, a great guitar hook and giddy bursts of "la la la," it's the one certified pop arrow in the band's quiver.
Sadly, there's no genuine live footage of the song from its original era. The best we can muster is this clever fan-vid, by someone called suburbanbatherson who seems to do this sort of thing all the time. The clip consists of chopped and screwed old footage from what looks like either a particularly zany British soap from the seventies or a horror film from Hammer Studios. There's been a murder at the blind school! Or something. The melodramatic gnashed teeth and wooden postures are manipulated via non intrusive pauses and rewinds until our players are almost cutting a rug. A rug of pain! The tone is perfect, and the shoddy techniques and technologies that would have been available at this very early date in music video almost certainly would not have done better.
Here's the mp3...
...but actually this version from a 1981 edition of the John Peel show, which has a cleaner sound and loses the soggy string section, is the better recording. One of my all time playlist staples, by the way.
Fire Engines - "Candyskin" (John Peel session, 1981)
Fire Engines - "Get Up and Use Me"
See what I mean about crummy old no budget videos? This official clip has choppy repetitions like the fan entry, and if you squint just right you can make the band out, but I don't think anyone could really call this the more entertaining or inspired vid. Not a bad song though, sitting squarely in the James Chance zone.
Fire Engines - "Get Up and Use Me"
Fire Engines - "Big Gold Dream"
(BBC2 1982)
You see more of the band in this dodgy 1982 BBC clip. Perhaps more than you want. The band decided to make one of their catchiest numbers more abrasive through sheer barechested-ness (and the black pants with white socks aren't helping). There are times when you're not sure if the video cassette transfer is warped, or if it's a cumulative snowblindness effect of studio lights bouncing off pale Scottish flesh. The boys look so gawky, that you have to wonder what's going on with the torso of their one shirted member? Why would he alone refuse? Irregular chest hair pattern? Stamos-esque freak belly button? Perhaps his pitch to keep his blouse on was that a full shirtless assault would make the shoulder pad brigade they brought in to sing back up a wee bit uncomfortable.
For the record I'm glad the ladies have tops as well. Towering hairspray levels negate eroticism, as any teen boy stumbling across an 80's copy of Playboy well knows.
Fire Engines - "Big Gold Dream"
Fire Engines - "Hungry Beat"
(Edinburgh, Scotland 2006)
A much cooler performance comes from last year, after the band was unearthed by their acolytes Franz Ferdinand. Not much more relaxed but surely more comfortable in their thankfully not displayed skin, the old gents rip through a version of oldie "Hungry Beat." With singer Davey Henderson's nasal voice given some gravity by age, the band sound akin to Tom Verlaine writing a disco song. Which is to say, awesome. If such a thing had existed in the actual Television oeuvre, you have to think that Alex Kapranos' public Marquee Moon bitching would never have come to pass.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at June 20, 2007 03:00 PM
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Comments
Fire Engines "Hungry Beat", including Lubricate Your Living Room, the two Pop:Aural singles and the Codex single come out on Acute Records, probably late september. More info soon.
Posted by: Dan Selzer at June 24, 2007 11:43 PM
Great to hear that, Dan.
Posted by: Jeff K at June 25, 2007 08:14 AM
